Quotes on Director

It's hard to be surprised by a film. It's hard to be surprised by another actor or by a director when you've seen enough and been around. So when I am, or when I forget that I'm watching someone's movie, or when I don't know how someone made a certain turn that I didn't expect . . . You know, I'm in.

Sometimes, when you're on the streets, certain music inspires you, and then you have a vision. But, at the end of the day, it's a synthesis of visions, so you have to think, as a director, of a scene, or how to deliver a line, or how do this visually.

I had to get a job, and of course, the job was 'The Godfather.' That made me be something I didn't know I was going to be. I became a big-shot director.

I owe Bankhead a gift; she made a director out of me.

You act in a movie, and at the end of the day, the director and editor decide what your performance is.

The terrible tragedy for every director is to watch an actor do what you want and not have the camera rolling - and never get it back again. So I always try to roll the camera before anybody's really ready.

As a designer, design director or any creative person, you have to hire great people, support them and make them feel comfortable so they can contribute and give you their best.

I'm not a pyrotechnical director; I'm not good with all those innovative things. What I am interested in is how actors can touch the heads and hearts of an audience.

In cinema, the leading player is the director.

A few years back I was asked if I would go and meet a director and his various acolytes, and it occurred to me halfway through the meeting that what I was doing was auditioning. And I thought, 'Well, hang on buddy. I've done half a century of this.'

A director must push his actors to the utmost limit to get everything possible out of each scene - without being corny or sentimental or going overboard.

To win Best Director at Sundance was beyond anything I could have imagined for myself. It's still an incredible feeling to know I won. But as happy as I am about winning, I also know many other women of color have directed amazing films over the years that were equally deserving and didn't win.

I am not the kind of director who sits in a chair smoking a cigar talking with a microphone to 10 assistants. I need to move. To touch. To put a painting on a wall. To arrange a set.

I feel fine, I don't care who the director is. All you have to do is know what your doing - all of us - everybody in the business - that's all you ask anyone - you know your job, I know mine, let's go do it.

I pride myself in collaborating and being a creative director, and creative direction isn't putting my opinion first. It's supporting an artist so they get the most out of the project.

When I write something, I want the best director to direct it. And that's not going to be me. So when David Fincher comes along and wants to direct 'The Social Network,' when Bennett Miller comes along and wants to direct 'Moneyball,' or when Danny Boyle wants to direct 'Jobs'? Hallelujah. I want them directing it.

Film buffs who don't live in Hollywood have a fantasy about what it's like to be a director. Movies and the people who make movies have such glamour associated with them. But the truth is, it's not like that. It's very different. It's hard work.

I don't want people saying, 'Should we get a female director?' I want to hear, 'Should we get a great director for this movie?'

Women's director! Well, I'm very pleased to be considered a master of anything, but remember, for every Jill there was a Jack. People like to pigeonhole you - it's a shortcut, I guess, but once they do, you're stuck with it.

A director makes only one movie in his life. Then he breaks it into pieces and makes it again.

For Mike Mills, I learned that having dance parties and crying with your cast does not make you a weak director, it makes you a strong director.